


It's Been So Long

by hyejolivia



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Other, as always english is not my first language pls dont judge me too harshly, but i wish it was bc i want juno and alessandra interactions again, everyone except jupeter + alessandra only make short appearances, rita is not mentioned im sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-20
Updated: 2021-03-20
Packaged: 2021-03-29 01:07:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30148410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyejolivia/pseuds/hyejolivia
Summary: AU where Alessandra really hates Juno for becoming a criminal. Of course, with the lady's luck, Juno runs into her during a mission.Also Jupeter are soft and in love and like to make fun of each other... so, basically just off-screen canon.Takes place somewhere around s3.
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Comments: 2
Kudos: 47





	It's Been So Long

**Author's Note:**

> i'm back with another fic, this time a tpp one, to project and to write the content i wish to see in this fandom

A cool night breeze blew through the dimly lit streets of Mars.

The breeze made Juno shiver. It reminded him of the cold, unpleasant days he had spent living in Hyperion City as a Private Eye. 

He had spent over thirty years in Hyperion. He had loved the city and its postcard esque landscape that hid streets full of all the wrong kind of excitement at one point, of course, but the longer he had stayed there, the more bad memories he had made in it. The multiple deaths he was partly – well, mostly – responsible for, the months spent at Valles Vicky’s Vixen Valley, the altar left untouched, the fights…

In Hyperion City, good memories were few and far between.

No matter how much he missed the good old days of his youth in Hyperion, the scars it had left on him, both physical and mental, were a constant reminder of why he was better off living on the Carte Blanche with the rest of the Aurinko crime family. 

Which is why he was… disgruntled, to say the least, to come face to face with Alessandra Strong on one of their small-scale heists. 

He had been sent to Mars to a city near Hyperion with Peter Nureyev - or as he was known within the Aurinko crime family, Peter Ransom – his… lover, he supposed. Their relationship was often complicated and Juno didn’t know if he could trust the peace between them quite yet. He wasn’t sure if he could trust the label they had put on the connection between them. 

But he was trying to. Dear god, was he trying.

The heist had gone surprisingly well. Juno and Peter had managed to distract their target, a rich unknown collector, and swiped an important hard drive right under his nose during dinner. 

Peter had left earlier, taking the hard drive with him and returning to the Carte Blanche while Juno had stayed behind as a distraction. When he was sure Peter had returned to the ship safely, Juno would politely excuse himself and leave.

Well, that had been the plan, at least.

Instead of making a swift exit and boarding the Carte Blanche at the spot they agreed on, he had run into a familiar face. 

Alessandra Strong. 

Alessandra, who had teamed up with him. Had a short fling with him. 

Alessandra, who had taught him to survive. To rely on others.  
Even if he had thrown all of those lessons out of the window a few moments later when he had decided that he’d had enough and tried to crawl into the Martian desert to die.

(Thank the heavens the big guy had gotten to him before he kicked the bucket. God knows he would've regretted it.)

Alessandra had seemed just as perplexed to see him as he was to see her, but the confusion hadn’t lasted long enough for him to think of a new escape plan before Alessandra was lunging at him with her fists ready to fight, leaving him no option but to fight back if he didn’t wish to fulfill his forty-year-long death wish this very minute. 

And that’s how he ended up in this situation: fighting his old friend, bruised and battered on the streets of a city far too close to his old home for comfort.

"What do you think, PI? Had enough yet?" Alessandra Strong shouted as she lunged towards the lady a few feet ahead of her on the dimly lit, empty street.

Unlike Hyperion, the city Juno found himself in didn’t seem to have an active nightlife. The streets were clean and quiet, instead of filthy and filled with future addicts and kids with broken dreams of a better life.

"First of all, I'm not a PI anymore. Get that through that thick skull of yours, will you? Secondly, would it really hurt you to use my name for once, Alessandra?" the former detective shot back and steadied himself on his better foot before ducking out of Alessandra’s way and using the boot of his weaker foot to keep her from getting any closer. Another punch dodged and another kick delivered. Juno was panting heavily, out of breath from the fight. Alessandra was a tough opponent.

Alessandra fell to her knees and took a moment to catch the breath that had been knocked out of her just a second ago before looking up from her kneeling position to meet Juno's bruised eyes - or rather, Juno's bruised eye. The robotic eye that had occupied the other side of Juno’s face was no longer there, leaving an ugly, scarred crater visible.

She balled up her hands, clenching her fists with such force that her fingernails left stinging marks on the palms of her hands as she got up, shaking slightly from exhaustion.

"Like I care what your name is, Steel. I don’t care to use it anymore. You gave up our alliance the second you set foot on Aurinko's spaceship and you know it."

Juno Steel. A former cop, an ex-PI, a current thief in the Aurinko crime family and a future coma patient by the looks of it. 

Juno shrugged apologetically and made a fleeting, pained expression as he settled back into a fighting stance. He had no interest in fighting Alessandra anymore, but as long as she was dead set on fighting him, he would have to stand his ground and protect himself.

"I'd really like to tell you I'm sorry about joining Buddy Aurinko’s crew, but honestly? This life is treating me well, Alessandra. I feel better than I've felt in years. Better than I ever felt back in Hyperion City,” Juno said, sighing.

Alessandra stood up tensely and gave the lady in front of her a quick lookover, making sure he saw her examining his current condition.

Alessandra laughed, exasperated. "Treating you well? You look like shit, Steel. Hell, somehow you look worse than you did when we were stuck in that nightmare of an utopian city!"

"Oh come on, Strong, I did not look that bad back there-” Juno started.

Alessandra stomped on the ground in irritation, interrupting him. "You did. You were literally hallucinating in there, Steel."

"-and don't act like you didn't do half of this yourself! We've been going at this for hours at this point! And for what? Personal, petty reasons? Fuck, Alessandra, even Sarah made less of a mess of me in nearly two decades than you in this single night," Juno said impatiently, lowering his voice for the last part and letting his injured arms fall to his sides. He felt a trail of blood trickling down his thigh and made a mental note to ask Vespa to bandage it up later, even though he was sure he’d receive a few (hopefully) empty threats to beat him up herself the next time he went off-plan. 

Juno knew Alessandra was half-right, though. He probably looked as exhausted as he felt and the single yellow street lamp was definitely not helping his case.

"I don't know who Sarah is and I don't care to know, either," Alessandra sighed and shifted her weight onto her right leg. 

Ah, right. Juno hadn’t told her about Sarah Steel. 

His mother.

"I don't really want to fight you either. In fact, I rather liked you when we worked together. Even after the whole Free Dome fiasco I still hadn't given up my hope that you'd finally come to your senses and do something rational for once,” Alessandra sighed, "but tell me, Steel. What am I supposed to do and how am I supposed to feel when you cut off all of your old friends and Hyperion City – no, scratch that – Mars itself just a few weeks after it all happened and months later I find you assisting a master thief in robbing my current client?"

The woman in front of Juno was now breathing heavily from the anger. The lines on Alessandra's face caused by the frustrated expression she’d had on for hours seemed even darker in the dim light. 

Even in the terrible lighting and with multiple open cuts on her face from the fight and the lines on her face he was causing, she still looked good, Juno had to admit, and despite her current state she carried herself in a way she did not the last time he saw her.

Probably thanks to her wife. She did mention she was marrying someone. 

Juno pushed that thought aside.

For a few heavy seconds he avoided Alessandra's eyes and his gaze searched the ground, hoping to find an answer or a sign on the concrete. Settling for staring at his shadow, he opened his mouth to answer her, only to find out that he no longer had any energy to argue with her. He inhaled deeply.

"Look, Alessandra – Strong – whatever, the point is – I know I fucked up when I cut everyone off and I'm sorry for that, okay? I know this seems like... like I'm betraying you and Mick and Sasha, and... any of my other old friends, and... Hyperion City... but I swear, Alessandra, the people I'm working with are doing good things," he said, desperate to end the fight.

"I... understand this isn't exactly giving them – or me – a good impression."

Alessandra snorted amusedly. "Definitely not."

Juno rolled his eye. "Alright, _miss Smartass._ Listen. The point here is... they're good people. Trust me. I wouldn't have joined them if they weren't." 

Alessandra relaxed her expression and shifted her weight so that she was once again balanced. She softened her gaze for a second before looking sternly at Juno's eye.

"You do understand that a simple apology for cutting people off won't get back what was stolen from my client, don't you? Even if you did apologize for joining the Aurinkos, it's not legal, Steel, and I couldn't say I’d forgive you for it."

Juno looked at Alessandra defeatedly, trying to make sense of the thoughts rumbling around in his head. He didn’t want to keep apologizing for something he didn’t truly feel sorry for doing.

“Juno,” Alessandra said, warning him.

A stronger breeze caught the loose strands of Alessandra's hair. For just a moment her long coat that was now flowing in the wind resembled a cape a superhero from one of those kids' shows might have worn. Like Andromeda. Like… Turbo.

Juno shivered, unable to tell whether he was shivering from the cold or the memories the sight brought to his mind. 

He kicked a small stone he noticed and shifted his gaze away from Alessandra's face.

"I know you couldn’t. Forgive me, I mean,” Juno said, a tinge of regret in his voice.

“Which is why I won't apologize for it. Shit, if you want to make me, Mister ‘Doesn't Know The Consequences To His Actions’ apologize, I’ve had to do some really messed up stuff in your eyes," Juno laughed softly. In this situation, it was clear Alessandra would be seen as the hero. He was nothing but a thief, no matter how much he wanted to believe otherwise. He turned away from Alessandra's direction, begging that Alessandra understood the message. He didn’t want to fight anymore.

He was exhausted.

"I figured as much," Alessandra replied. "Not that it would've mattered, since I wouldn’t have forgiven you either way, but I would've liked to hear you say it nonetheless."

"As I said, I can't forgive you for it. I'm also legally bound to finish my job for my client. And, for personal, petty reasons," Alessandra said, making quote signs with her fingers in the air, "I'm not going to let you off the hook so easily. I do, however, apologize for this, unlike you."

"Apologize for what? Alessandra, you-" Juno started, turning to face the woman again, only to be met with the strong fist of justice from Alessandra Strong. Taking a forceful swing at the former detective with all her strength and finishing off the attack with a swift kick to both of his legs, she finally turned away.   
Juno landed in a nearby puddle of what appeared to be muddy water. He listened to the light footsteps of the woman get quieter and quieter as he laid on the ground, too exhausted both mentally and physically to get up anymore. He tasted blood in his mouth and cursed his luck. 

Not wishing to continue the fight any longer even accidentally, Juno stayed down until he was sure the PI was out of the area and showed her general direction his middle finger. 

Mature, Steel, real mature.

Out of energy and still fresh from a fight, Juno painfully pushed himself up to a sitting position in the puddle after a few minutes, and sent the Carte Blanche crew his coordinates on his comms and laid back down, replaying Alessandra's earlier words in his mind. 

Of course he'd known all of it before he had even made the decision to leave Hyperion City, let alone the entire planet of Mars. He knew his old friends and allies would see it as betrayal or abandonment. Still, somehow, hearing it said out loud by one of the people he had left behind made it that much more real. If he had any more energy left he would've laughed at how he, once again, even when he thought he was doing the right thing, had managed to hurt multiple people.

It had been so easy to ignore all of the people he had hurt by leaving while he was working with the Aurinkos, swept up in his new lifestyle. There was never a dull moment, never enough quiet to allow himself to think about home.

This definitely wasn’t the place to be thinking of the past, either, but he found he had no better use for the time he was spending laying on the ground, hoping he would get the help he asked for soon.

If they came back for him. He would’ve understood if they just left him there.

Honestly speaking, he didn't understand why the Aurinko crime family even bothered with him in the first place. Especially Peter Nureyev. Stunning, suave, kind Peter Nureyev. 

Juno was none of that. 

He was difficult to get along with and refused to let people too close to him. He had an opinion on everything and anything and wasn’t afraid to voice it. 

He was temperamental and full of irrational fears and he had enough issues to last a lifetime. Even the best of therapists would probably have a field day trying to make sense of the mess that was his brain.

Juno lifted his arm and plopped the still somewhat dry part on his face and forced out a laugh. He really had to stop getting into pathetic situations like this one, didn't he? 

No good thoughts ever came out of situations like this one.

Juno closed his eyes as he tried to tune out the constant nagging of his inner monologue. There was a time and a place for everything, and if he was being frank, this was neither the time or the place for anything at all.

A few, agonizingly long minutes later, Juno heard familiar footsteps. 

Jet Siquliak and Vespa Ilkay, Juno recognized. He had memorized everyone's walking patterns and sounds on the ship.

Call it force of habit, a compulsion, a trauma response... all of them would probably be right.

“Dear god, Steel, what happened to you? Why didn’t you call us sooner?” he heard Vespa ask

Juno felt himself get pulled up by two strong pairs of hands and mentally made a note to apologize to the two later. Jet and Vespa paid his exhausted moaning and pained sounds no mind as they helped him to the Ruby 7, letting him pass out in the backseat while they conversed about his current situation and how Ransom would not be pleased at all.

* * *

The next time Juno opened his eyes, he was quite literally being dragged aboard the Carte Blanche. He shook his head and made a small noise to alert Jet and Vespa, who immediately tensed and let go of him, backing up. They took a quick look at Juno’s pathetic state before relaxing again and helping him back up. 

Vespa huffed irritatedly as she reached for Juno again, propping him up with the help of Jet.

Jet glanced at him worriedly as they started walking again but decided to not press the issue any further. Instead, Jet tightened his grip on the beat-up lady as they helped him walk through the halls of the ship.

"It is vital that you get cleaned up immediately and go through a medical check-up as soon as you are able to, understand?" asked the larger man as they turned around a corner to the living quarters.

"Yeah, yeah, big guy, I get it, I fucked up, I'm going," Juno mumbled. Vespa shot him a piercing glare, clearly warning him against having any attitude in his comments. 

"Yes. You did. You’re coming to see me later, Steel. Don't you forget it," the green-haired woman said as she knocked on one of the doors in the hallway, the metal sound making Juno’s post-fight headache that much worse. 

"Oh, I wouldn't dare,” Juno muttered to himself, meaning it completely. When provoked enough, Vespa was terrifying. The only person she had never shown any hostility to was Buddy. Buddy was also the only one who could calm down an angry Vespa, so it was better to not take any chances of angering her when Buddy wasn’t around.

Juno slowly lifted his gaze to follow the sound of Vespa's forceful knocking, which had continued for a little bit too long for Juno’s liking.

Oh, he thought.

Peter Nureyev's room. 

Oh, this was not going to be a pleasant night for him. 

"Oh yes, yes, I will be there soon, worry not," Peter's voice rang from the other side of the door. Juno snorted and grinned weakly. Leave it to Peter to still somehow talk in such a fancy way even at the early hours of the night with no one else except the Carte Blanche’s crew around to hear him.

That was one of the constants about Peter Nureyev, though. No matter which persona he put on, be it Rex Glass, Duke Rose, Perseus Shah or Peter Ransom, his signature way of adding a little flare to the way he spoke stayed with him. 

It was one of the details Juno adored about him. Peter Nureyev was a very elegant man in all senses of the word and he had an aura of... composedness Juno simply did not possess, even if his composedness wasn’t necessarily true. 

Perhaps that is one of the reasons why Juno Steel and Peter Nureyev worked so well together, despite having very different ways of working and very different ways of living. The elegant and (at least seemingly) composed man and the reckless mess of a lady. 

They do say opposites tend to attract each other, Juno thought as a small metal click caught his attention. 

The white metal door to Peter's room opened slightly and Juno could barely see his lover peeking through, clearly trying to determine who was waiting outside of his door. 

"Hi honey, I'm home," Juno said as soon as Peter’s eyes landed on him, giving his lover his best impression of a carefree smile. Peter's eyes flew wide open in shock at the state of the lady at his door and his attention was entirely focused on Juno as he huffed and opened the rest of the locks.

"Oh, dear. Whatever has happened to you?"

Here's the catch, though: despite being wildly different in multiple aspects, Juno Steel and Peter Nureyev were similar in more ways than one would realize from just looking at them. Juno was once again reminded of this fact as he recognized Peter's frantic efforts to hide his panic and keep both his expression and demeanor calm and composed as he scanned over Juno's general appearance.

"Just a little fight with an old friend," Juno replied and coughed, "nothing too serious."

"Nothing serious?" Peter questioned, looking flabbergasted. Juno offered a weak smile. It wasn’t exactly a lie - Alessandra hadn’t killed him and he’d sported worse injuries in the past, so his current state was nothing new to him. 

Nothing serious, just like he said.

Where Peter Nureyev would have normally been melting where he stood because of that smile, even if it did look a little pained, he was currently fixated on taking in all the possible injuries the poor lady could have sustained. 

"Oh, no. You are not getting out of this one with an explanation like that, Juno dearest. Vespa, Jet, please assist me in bringing him to the washroom before he stains any of the floors,” Peter pleaded.

Vespa snorted. 

"Gladly, Ransom. Anything to get rid of all this extra weight." 

Peter glared at her with the most intimidating look he could muster at the moment and hurried off to open the door to the room and then quickly turned on the water for the bath.

Stepping back and standing up straight, Juno shook his head at the two that had accompanied him to Peter's room. He tried to shake off their death grips on him.

"I can handle myself, thank you very much. Even if Nu- Ransom here doesn't think so,” Juno announced. 

Vespa and Jet seemed taken aback with the sudden burst of energy from their shipmate, considering that the same lady had been on the brink of losing consciousness just fifteen minutes earlier, but let him stand up on his own. Peter made his way to the door and took hold of Juno's shoulder.

"You can go, then. Thank you, dears, I promise that I will make this up to you later," Peter said, nodding his head first towards the pair and then towards the door.

Jet nodded, taking one last Look at Juno before reaching for the door handle and closing the door.

As soon as the door closed behind Vespa and Jet and they could no longer see him, Juno dropped his posture and shrugged off Peter's hand from his shoulder. He took off his coat that was still wet and muddy from the puddle and threw it on the man's neatly made bed. He heard a soft gasp behind him.

"Juno!"

As he made his way to the washroom, Juno also discarded his boots and the weapons he had hidden in his non-coat pockets on a nearby chair. A plasmacutter, a regular knife and a couple of lockpicks in case he needed to break into a room in the mansion they had done the heist in. 

"Juno, my love. What happened to you?" Peter asked, quickly picking up both the muddy coat and the filthy boots and carrying them to the washroom, where Juno was already getting undressed for the bath. "Seriously, this time, please. We agreed you would stay for a few minutes longer than me to make sure I got out safely, but you... this doesn't look good, dear."

"As I said... a fight. With an old friend,” Juno said, gritting his teeth. Peter raised an eyebrow at the statement and the tone he had said it with.

"Turns out said old friend might actually kind of hate me, so... cheers to that, I guess," Juno grumbled as he dropped off the rest of his clothing and got in the bathtub, letting the hot water swallow him. His fresh cuts and wounds stung and his muscles ached. He hadn’t felt like this since his days at Hyperion City, fighting corrupted politicians and aliens who seemed to have it out for him personally.

Peter sighed softly and set down the load of clothes on the floor.

"If you do not wish to talk about it, I understand. However, I will not let my love - who is currently clearly experiencing some strong emotions - try to handle himself alone right now. Juno, would you mind me helping you get cleaned up?"

Juno shook his head exhaustedly and let Peter splash water on him and gently clean his wounds and hair in silence for a moment. He closed his eyes and focused on the feeling of warm hands and warm water against his broken skin and his scalp, hearing Peter murmuring something under his breath every now and then which eventually turned into soft humming that filled the emptiness left by the silence in the washroom.

"You'd think a grown lady would know not to roll in mud anymore," Peter said in a teasing tone. Juno rolled his eye and despite his current state managed to produce a quiet laugh.

"Alright, mom, I get it," Juno said and winked in Peter's direction, which made him smile with all of those sharp teeth of his that Juno so adored.

Peter lifted his finger and pointed at the lady before him. "Exactly, son. No longer shall you be allowed to leave this room! You have disgraced the honor of the Holy Coat," he finished, smiling even wider when he heard a muffled laugh from Juno, who had turned away from him.

"Nureyev, no, I'll compensate for the laundry costs! Please spare me from the punishment!" Juno laughed, barely managing to finish his sentence between laughs. Peter looked at the white ceiling of the small-ish washroom.

It was nice, he had to admit. Peter knew Juno usually didn't enjoy this kind of attention - this soft, personal kind of attention, so to be able to have a moment of intimacy and vulnerability like this was quite rare. 

It wasn’t that Juno didn’t enjoy being cared for. He was just used to having to fend for himself since Sarah had taken Benzaiten away from him and then later gone and passed herself, too. His past partners hadn’t been too kind to him, either, so he didn’t know how to respond to it. Peter knew this from their long talks behind closed doors on the ship.

By the looks of it, though - the soft smile on his face and his eye closed - his lover wasn't complaining about the moment either.

"Juno," Peter started carefully, "dear."

"Hm?"

"Could you please... tell me what this all is about, though, so I can help you fix it. I can sense something is bothering you, something else than just this fight with this old friend of yours."

Juno sighed and opened his eye again. He hung his head low for a few seconds before shaking his head softly to get rid of the unwanted thoughts and slowly got up from the bath, picking up a towel Peter had set down for him near the bathtub.

"Let me get dressed first, Nureyev," Juno said quietly. Seeing his lover's serious expression as he exited the washroom, he quickly dried himself off and put on some of the clothes he had left in an old, wooden clothing closet in Peter's room for exactly these kinds of situations. He raised his voice and yelled that he was ready and before he realized it, Peter had sat him down on his bed where the coat had been just a few moments ago.

Juno twisted his hands and fingers over each other and bounced his leg nervously. He glanced at Peter before bringing his gaze back to the floor of the room. White, like nearly everything else in the ship. 

Juno breathed in shakily. "Nureyev... do you think I'm a bad person for leaving Mars so suddenly?" 

Peter opened and closed his mouth to think of a good response, but the question had left him speechless.

Juno had never talked to him about feeling guilty for leaving his hometown and his home planet. In fact, Juno had often expressed happiness and satisfaction over his choice. Peter cleared his throat and set down his hand on Juno’s thigh.

"Juno, love, why would you think that?"

Juno curled in on himself and brought his legs up onto the bed and crossed them, still staring at the floor.

"I just... I met an old friend. She was so angry, Nureyev, angrier than I've ever seen her. We fought for hours. She told me I had made the wrong choice and betrayed not only her but all of my old friends... Mick, Sasha, hell, even Ramses... and Hyperion City itself. By joining a bunch of thieves, I mean."

"Juno, I-"

"And I know, I know we're all good people and we're trying to do something good. But I can't help but feel like... like I did something wrong. Please, Nureyev, just... tell me I didn't make the wrong choice."

Nureyev gave the thigh his hand was resting on a tight squeeze. "Look at me, love."

Juno hesitantly looked at the man next to him and stopped fidgeting with his hands, suddenly extremely aware of everything he was doing that was showing his anxiety.

"You did what was best for you. Our methods may not be acceptable to everyone, by all means, but I can promise you, Juno, you made the right choice. We're trying to do good."

"Besides, you're so full of life on the ship. When I last met you, Juno, you weren't afraid of risking your life on the line for something you thought to be more important than you. Here you've learned to value not only yourself but also others. Ask anyone on the team and they'll tell you the same." 

Juno nodded silently.

Peter breathed out slowly. "Thank you for telling me, dear. Please do not try to hold in all of your emotions."

Juno nodded, seemingly lost in thought. He took Peter's hand and examined it, tracing the lines of his palm for a few short moments.

"You're right, Nureyev. I guess I just... I still second-guess myself and the choices I've made," Juno finally said. "A few decades of all of your choices leading to the worst kind of consequences and making your life go to shit does that to a lady."

Peter laughed at that. "I know, my dear detective."

"Not a detective anymore, love."

"But please, Juno. Think of yourself for once. If you're happier here, what else is there to worry about? Rita also gets along with everyone on the ship quite well and honestly, I'm also happier with you here, too."

Juno smiled. "You've gone soft."

"I'm afraid you're right," he grinned, "but I don't particularly mind it."

"Neither do I, Nureyev. Neither do I," Juno yawned, suddenly feeling the exhaustion from before creeping back in. "Something else I really wouldn't mind is a good night's sleep and some warm food."

"In that exact order, I'm sure," Peter winked and stood up, offering Juno his hand. "Shall we go see if Vespa has saved you some food and if Rita has hidden some snacks in the kitchen cabinets again?"

"That we shall, and then I'll pay our lovely Vespa a visit in her room," Juno agreed, giving his lover a quick kiss on the cheek as he stood up, taking his hand. "Thank you, Nureyev. Really."

"Oh, don't worry about it, Juno. I much prefer to help my lady when he's in distress than to watch him beat himself up about silly things."

"I'm sure you do, Nureyev," Juno rolled his eye as the two headed off to the kitchen, the fight with Alessandra out of his mind and the conversation with Peter replacing it in the constant stream of repeating thoughts in his head.

_“But I can promise you, Juno.”_

_“You made the right choice.”_

**Author's Note:**

> please leave kudos/comments if you enjoyed! comments really make my day <3


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